The APT decided to travel out to Oakland for this special edition of Week 17, so sorry for the delay in getting the picks posted. It has been quite a relief being away form Baltimore because I can finally show my face during the daytime without fear of revealing my identity to Poe enthusiasts. It turns out people in Oakland do not have much interest in poetry, but they are a highly educated lot.
The APT finds this city very hospitable when the locals are not rioting.
Although the game will be blacked out on Sunday due to the NFL’s arcane policy which is designed to punish Baltimore fans living near or visiting Oakland who are afraid to venture into the Black Hole, the APT will find a way to take in the action of this crucial win and you’re in finale.
Hey-Bey's ride, purchased when he saw that the Ravens would take him in Don Banks's Mock Draft v7.0
With a day to kill in Oakland on Friday, the APT decided to further his understanding of the local culture. After catching up with his favorite Maryland receiver who can now be seen sprinting up and down the field with his hands waving in the air at McAfee Coliseum, it was on to the finest institution of higher learning in all of Oakland.
With majors ranging from Jury Immunity to Horticulture to NAFTA studies, Oaksterdam offers something for everyone. The APT encourages you to come see this wonderful burg for yourself next time your favorite pigskin team has a trap game against the Raiders.
Coaching Legend John Wooden correctly points out that true perfection is out of the reach of most mopes, but it is something they should strive for anyway. Since most of you will never know the sweet flawlessness of the APT, here’s a primer:
Things that are perfect:
Ray Lewis
Crabs, Bibs, and 3lbs of Old Bay
Booboo's Week 11 Picks
After the Jump….Week 13 and Some Things that Need Some Fucking Work:
As those of you who I have actually met will attest, I’ve long been a believer in the “green light, the orgiastic future” and the brilliance of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s every word. So, to console myself after this week’s New Yorker article detailing my mentor’s abject failures as a screenwriter — “I just couldn’t cut it as a hack”, Fitzy noted wryly – I logged on to my girlfriend’s Facebook account to make snarky comments to myself about people I don’t really know. And then I saw this:
Extra! Extra! Poe's Ravens Greatest Franchise of All Time
Baltimore, MD
The Baltimore Ravens, presumably owned and operated by famed poet Edgar Allen Poe’s descendants, have just moved to 3-0 after easily defeating Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns, 34-3. Wire reports out of New York indicate the Ravens may be the best, most complete team in football and that they resemble an all-you-can-eat buffet of the ‘66 Packers, ‘78 Steelers and ‘07 Patriots. We won’t know for sure until Week 10, when they are finally exposed to a national audience in a highly anticipated Monday Night Pigskin rematch against those very same Paul Browns, but this newspaper has it on good authority that Ravens and Giants fans should start booking train tickets to Miami for the first week of February. Another team from the land of meadows and brooks might have something to say about who boards those trains in February: the Ravens will likely have to oust the Jets in the presumed AFC title bout.
Also in Section C: Unemployment rate among newspaper boys hits all-time high.
Week 10
Thursday Night Not Quite Ready for Prime-time Football: Chi @ SF
In what may be an annual tradition, the Anonymous Poe Toaster has decided to check in with his Almost Midseason Awards Section.
As midseason is upon us, questions abound. Who may be the best team in football according to Peter King, maybe? Is Lardarius Webb really too fast for his head to keep up with his body? How much more film could Ed Reed possibly watch? Is the Bronco Bubble finally starting to rear it’s ugly head? Will the New York Football Giants be the next shoe to drop?
William “Bunk” Moreland Award for Dedicated Service. Joe. One of these years the APT will win the pool. He tried moving in with his girlfriend and dedicating himself to daytime ESPN, but the results remain the same. At the end of the day I think Bunk Moreland would say he was happier just being murder police than if he had ever become one of the bosses. Runners Up: The lone waitress at Final Final and the inanimate steel wire which holds together the Golden Gate Bridge.
At least Bunk is five and half years from a pension.
Ken Lewis Award. Bruister. For dedicated service to the Bank in helping them dispose of Countrywide assets; and for eschewing the $67,000 latrine for a $6.70 cabo chicken sandwich with free chips and a drink. Runner Up: Gault, for buying that beautiful damn latrine at the Sotheby’s auction with his father in law’s money.
The Grady Sizemore Award for Multi-Culturalism.Damo, for emigrating from Australia to learn about square “feet” and football. Damo is the only guy in this pool who can accurately determine whether it’s a good decison to go for it on 4th and centimeters. Runner Up: Billy Bitter.
The NFL Rules Committee Five Yard Illegal Contact and Automatic First Down Award for Questionableness. McKinley, for texting in his week 2 picks by saying only “give me all of the favorites” and then not picking in weeks 4-?? Runner Up: Gault. No one knows where they stand in this pool. We expected questionable math, slow response times and sloppiness, but he has underperformed even the lowest expectations.
The Gloria Vanderbilt Award for Graciousness.Caucasian Ray Lewis. For hosting key wins against San Diego and Denver. Well played. Everyone was overserved, the AFC West was exposed for what it is, and for a brief moment all was good in the world. Runner Up: Betty Draper.
She's better to look at than White Ray, but his TV is way, way bigger.
Bill Gates Award for Microsoft Proficiency. Big Red — Final Final patron, Cowboy Fan, Wireless Technology Connoisseur. For attempting to crank up his laptop at the bar for some live gambling week 1 through a dedicated combination of index finger keyboard strikes and puzzled wincing. And then for calling Bodog (probably from the rotary bar phone) to lock in the half-time line of Ravens-Chiefs once he realized reports of this new technological frontier without wires were vastly overstated. Runner Up: Victor Ramos, our on-site IBM guy, for asking about the last time I deleted my cookies upon hearing that my hard drive crashed irreparably. Seriously, Victor, do you think the APT, co-owner of a powerful blogging enterprise and morbid poetry enthusiast, doesn’t keep his cookies in order?
The Darrius Heyward-Bey Award for Auspicious Use of 4.3 Seconds. Guv. This guy instinctively takes the Ravens for 8 to 10 points every week, and that kind of dedication usually results in a big late season finish. Runner Up: Uncle Ray, for shooting the gap. It’s crazy how much film he watches, man.
If diligently following the NFL since 1996 has taught me one thing, professionally, its that being good at your job is completely and totally overrated. What is most important is to have fun out there, performance and quotas and turnover ratio be damned.
Which of these two hardworking men is going straight to the Hall of Fame?
And, if you can have fun out there while being old and white, you know — like the upper management and sportswriters and announcers who drool all over the keyboards and microphones while watching you — all the better.
The world is full of competent, capable, minorities who are willing to trade a hard day’s sweat for a fair wage, but really, they are probably illegal aliens and they should learn how to have fun at the office and stop taking themselves and their responsibilities so damn seriously all the time. In other words, as we long suspected, the real world is nothing at all like The Real World — it’s actually a hell of a lot like Office Space.
Dressed for Success: This is a Real Straight Shooter with Management Written All Over Him
"What was the use of my having come from Oakland, it was not natural to have come from there, yes, write about it if I like or anything, if I like, but not there, there is no there there."
- Getrude Stein, in an often misconstrued reflection on her childhood home (the APT contends that she was talking about the Raiders' pass blocking)
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